Daily Devotional

Word of the Day

The Power of Words

One of the great forces that each one of us possesses, and so many times abuse, is the force, or the power, of words that come out of our mouth. The Scripture has a lot to say about the power of speech, the power of words. We realize, from the epistle that James has spoken to us, the necessity of bringing about the oversight of the tongue. It's an unruly member and how great a fire a little spark, the Scripture says, can kindle (James 3:5). The mature among us, James goes on to say, is the one that can control his own tongue (3:2). So we want to talk a little bit about words, how forceful they are, and how they can change the lives of individuals that we encounter.

We can destroy people with our words, or we can edify, encourage, and bring life. Words are the things that carry power when they're in agreement with the Word of God, for we're not ashamed of the gospel; it's the power of God to salvation (Rom. 1:16). So we pray and we believe God to open for us doors of utterance. You see, words have power. They carry the message of life or the message of death. So we need to then examine our own hearts and ask, "What messengers are we really? Are we bringing life, or are we bringing death to people that we encounter?" Most of us would like to think, "Well, you know, life, praise God! I'm sharing the gospel with people every opportunity that I get." But what about some of the people that are closest to us, and we don't guard our words? Are we bringing life or death? Are we involving people that are closest to us in backbiting, slander, and evil speaking? So we want to examine our lives and ask ourselves this question: how careful are we with our words?

Now, you'd think that those of us men would be a little safer in this area, because we know that women talk at least twice as much as we do! I know what some of you ladies are thinking. "Yeah, we have something worth saying, praise God!" We realize, you know, that us men are a little simpler. Somebody gave me a great picture I have back there on the desk. It's this picture that has two consoles; one here and then a console just below it like you would stack for your hi-fi or whatever. One of them was just FULL of lights and knobs and buttons and toggle switches and all of that. The other one is this box and it just has one switch: on and off. On that one it has men, and the other one it has women. I think that's probably true, ladies. You are a little more complicated than we are. We know from the words aspect that women do in a given day speak at least twice as many words as men do. It's not how many words you speak; it's whether or not they're being controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 17, verse 27 says, "He that has knowledge spares his words." Do you want to find out how smart you are? Ascertain how little you speak, because "he that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit." So we realize, then, that we're to watch our words and realize that the more we speak, the more susceptible we are to speaking amiss. Put a watch over your lips, the Scripture tells us (Ps. 141:3). So it's very important to understand the necessity of bringing about the control of our mouths and the words that proceed from our heart.

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